02224cam a22002657 4500001000700000003000500007005001700012008004100029100001600070245014200086260006600228490004200294500001800336520106000354530006101414538007201475538003601547690007601583690007801659700002701737710004201764830007701806856003801883856003701921w14412NBER20180319111821.0180319s2008 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aHilt, Eric.14aThe Limited Partnership in New York, 1822-1853h[electronic resource]:bPartnerships without Kinship /cEric Hilt, Katharine E. O'Banion. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc2008.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w14412 aOctober 2008.3 aIn 1822, New York became the first common-law state to authorize the formation of limited partnerships, and over the ensuing decades, many other states followed. Most prior research has suggested that these statutes were utilized only rarely, but little is known about their effects. Using newly collected data, this paper analyzes the use of the limited partnership in nineteenth-century New York City. We find that the limited partnership form was adopted by a surprising number of firms, and that limited partnerships had more capital, failed at lower rates, and were less likely to be formed on the basis of kinship ties, compared to ordinary partnerships. The latter differences were not simply due to selection: even though the merchants who invested in limited partnerships were a wealthy and successful elite, their own ordinary partnerships were quite different from their limited partnerships. The results suggest that the limited partnership facilitated investments outside kinship networks, and into the hands of talented young merchants. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aK2 - Regulation and Business Law2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aN81 - U.S. • Canada: Pre-19132Journal of Economic Literature class.1 aO'Banion, Katharine E.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w14412.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w1441241uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w14412